THQ filed for bankruptcy back in December, with the filing revealing the titles of several new work in progress games. Those games, and games already announced and known, will now be offered up piecemeal (which means on a game by game basis) in an auction, set to run on the 22nd of January.
THQ originally planned to use Debtor In Possession funding, an idea knocked back by Judge Mary Walrath last week. Creditors requested three more weeks, with the idea that potential buyers could pick and choose individual assets.
In contrast, Clearlake’s bulk sale plans were rejected. Clearlake are currently funding THQ’s operations, with a figure of $60 million (with the intention to acquire its business) touted a while back. THQ’s creditors objected to the buyout, and the hearing was pushed back.
The latest update is that parties have come to some kind of agreement, with the sale to start in just over two weeks. EA and Warner are both said to be interested in THQ’s games – although it’s not clear which games each publisher might be wanting to pick up at the auction yet – with Clearlake also likely to still be in the game.
Ubisoft too are also in the game, according to reports. Saints Row is clearly the key franchise THQ currently own.
hol
It’s sad but hopefully the key devs & franchises will be sold & kept alive, Volition & Red Faction & obviously, Saints Row. Both games have given many an hour of laughs.
VINDICARE UK
Rockstar! GTAV featuring some silly tw*t dressed in purple with Niko Bellic, Brucie and CJ kicking the shiz out of him via a guest appearance / dlc mission to show who the real kings of the sandbox genre are!
Oooooo – Hog tie Prof. Genki and place the fool on rail tracks in Red Dead 3.
If EA get Saints Row they will just kill off everything that makes it an ok game, hype its co-op features with kinnect support and even fudge all that up in the name of Origin.
gazzagb
Saints Row, Company of Heroes, Metro etc, THQ have some decent IP’s, I just hope EA doesn’t get any of them.
HoboCastro
Me too. EA servers on Homefront 2 would be worse than THQ servers on the original Homefront.
yiddo
If EA were to acquire something like Saint Rows, they would force it to be dark, gritty and 100% serious. Fact.
I guess EA will go for the WWE game license if they can (is that included in this, considering that’s more of a license, i’m not sure how it would work) to fit in with their catalogue of sports games. I hope somebody picks up the Red Faction franchise and makes it a FPS again, I absolutely loved the FPS Red Factions.
When they say selling individual assets, does this mean IP’s + their set teams or say somebody could just buy Volition studios (assuming they were actually under or owned by THQ). It may be a stupid question but I’m not completely up to scratch on these kind of things yet.
xdarkmagician
THQ was trying to sell 4 of its studios in one big package deal, but now they need to sell them individually. The studios for sale are Volition, Vigil Games, THQ Phoenix, and THQ Wireless. Their foreign studios like Relic weren’t for sale in the first agreement but that might have changed since creditors now want to sell everything piecemeal, which basically means everything is for sale in any combination, you could make a bid on the Saints Row franchise and not buy vilioltion, as long as you bid enough. the creditors and investors, THQ and Clearlake Capital will add the bid combination up to the highest degree of profit and sell that combination. So if you bid 10 million for Saints Row, EA bids 10 million for vilioltion, but ActiV bids 19 million for both, they’ll split up the deal so you and EA win.
aerobes
As mentioned by Yiddo, I’d very much like to see someone take Red Faction back to its FPS roots. Not there aren’t enough FPS’s … too many perhaps but the original pair were very special games and I’d like to see someone attempt to regain that magic.
KeRaSh
And you wouldn’t want that to be EA.
aerobes
Not really bothered but if I could choose, I’d like Activision to take it and give it to Singularity developers, Raven.
tonycawley
So homefront could end up becoming what it shouldve been from the start, a good game. Had a good premise just needed better development.
HoboCastro
With even worse servers.
samiro05
Will this involve darksiders? I would say that is a bigger game for them than saints row but that’s just personal preference.
aerobes
I wonder which series has the biggest sales? I like Darksiders but couldn’t care less about Saints Row. Having said that however, the THQ game I’m most interested in is Metro: Last Light.
KeRaSh
I would trust Ubisoft with the Red Faction franchise. While I still have some faith in Volition, a cooperation with some input from Ubi would be ideal.
Erroneus
Time for Valve to pickup some talent and add some much needed devs to a busy company, which are going to have their hands full with upcoming games, linux games & their newly announced steambox.
The Lone Steven
I can see Rockstar picking up Saints Row just for a laugh. I really hope Acti or EA won’t get Red Faction as they will turn it into Red of Duty:Honourfield and shove it out either with no marketing or on a yearly basis. I can see Ubi giving RF a decent game, same with Square enix. Saints Row will most likely be picked up by EA as they would love to try and give GTA a run for it’s cash. As well as getting the same amount of sales that it tends to get on day one.
I am very glad that SP:SOT is not up for sale as the last thing we need is Acti picking it up, turning it into a generic 3rd person shooter, releasing it with little to no marketing and erase any hope of there being another game.
Can see EA picking up WWE as they have a sports brand so naturally, they can just give it to one of their sports development team to handle and release it on a yearly basis without upsetting the fanbase.